Box-like objects constitute a large percentage of objects that need to be picked (i.e., removed from a pallet or holding container) in industrial, manufacturing, logistics, and commercial environments. Box-like objects are typically characterized by at least one substantially planar picking surface. Conventional robotic picking of boxes can only handle known sizes, numbers, and types of boxes arranged in a uniform manner on a structured pallet. Using mechanical fixtures, some current systems pre-position a pallet of boxes so that a robot can pick them from known pre-programmed locations. Any deviation from this known structure, either in the size of the box, the number of boxes, or the location of boxes results in failure of the system. Some computer-vision-based systems rely on the boxes having clean edges only at their boundaries and cannot deal with boxes that have advertising, printed characters, printed logos, pictures, color, or any other texture on them. Such boxes have visual edges on their faces—i.e., edges that do not correspond to an actual physical boundary of the box. Current computer-vision-based systems cannot distinguish the physical edges between two different boxes from other visual edges on the faces of boxes, causing these systems to misjudge the size and position of the box(es). Picking and moving the box where the system has misjudged its size and location may either cause the box to slip from the grasp of the robot or may cause the robot to pick two or more boxes where it should have picked only one.